Coca‑Cola Community Club of the Year
Rewarding community-focused football clubs
As football fans, or parents of football fans, know, the relationship between a local Football League club and their community is a committed one. As part of Coca‑Cola’s own commitment to the communities in which we operate and to encouraging people to live active, healthy lifestyles, we’re celebrating those clubs who give back to the community that supports them by sponsoring a Coca‑Cola Community Club of the Year Award.
Footie in the community
Presented at The Football League Awards, this award looks to honour those football clubs which have demonstrated success at delivering life-changing programmes into their local community. These programmes cover a wide variety of areas including health, disability, education, sports participation, social inclusion and the environment.
The shortlisted clubs that have excelled in these areas during 2010:
AFC Bournemouth - 'Green Goals Project' (Environment)
Working in partnership with Bournemouth Borough Council, the project aimed to develop a unique, sustainable partnership linking football, education and business with the plans of improving the local environment, raising awareness and benefiting the community as a whole.
Dagenham & Redbridge FC - 'Daggers Sign-Up Against Racism' (Social Inclusion)
This club project tackled one of the major social problems in their local community – racism. The club has always supported national anti-discrimination initiatives such as Kick It Out and Show Racism the Red Card, but wanted to do something which directly engaged the local community and got them coming through their turnstiles.
Derby County FC - 'The Movement' (Sports Participation)
The Derby County initiative targeted 11-16 year old inactive girls through a programme of sports, physical activity and dance. The project aimed to increase levels of participation amongst the target audience and increase their understanding of healthy lifestyle choices.
Queens Park Rangers FC - 'Downs Syndrome Tiger Cubs' (Disability)
The scheme used the power of football to forge stronger and deeper connections with its local disabled community, by running sessions for children and young people with Downs Syndrome focused on developing the core fundamentals of football, as well as other sports.
Southend United FC - 'Blues Bodycare' (Health)
What began as a small pilot project in 2007 has since developed into the largest health improvement programme of its type in Essex. The innovative project delivers activities to children, young people and adults throughout South East Essex in partnership with the NHS, local authorities and schools.
Stevenage FC - 'Kick Start Money Skills' (Education)
In partnership with Barclay’s Bank, this scheme was devised to tackle the bad stigma associated with football and money, educating the local community with regards to money management.
And the winner for 2011 is… Southend United!
The Southend United FC Blues Bodycare scheme engaged over 9,000 people in their local community, with over 7,000 being children or young people at 176 different venues in the club’s local area. Ninety two per cent of children and 85 per cent of adults that have been involved have shown a positive improvement in their health. As a result, Southend United are now an official delivery partner in the NHS's strategy for obesity reduction.
Liz Lowe, Citizenship Manager at Coca‑Cola Great Britain said: "Coca‑Cola Great Britain is proud to be associated with an award that celebrates some of the most fantastic work carried out by Football League clubs off the pitch. Congratulations to all the clubs who entered: the standard of submissions into this category just gets higher each year and it’s a real testament to Southend United that they’ve won it for two years running now!"
